James Ricalton (May 13, 1844 in Half Way, near

Waddington, New York Waddington is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in St. Lawrence County, New York, United States. The population was 2,266 at the 2010 census. The town was named after its principal village. The Town of Waddington has a village, al ...

- died in Waddington October 28, 1929) was an American school

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

, traveler,

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

, and

photographer A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographe ...

. Ricalton travelled extensively and he circumnavigated the world seven times. "Outdoor Men and Women; Heroes of the Camera,"
''Outing Magazine.'' Vol. 46 (April–September 1905). pp. 729-733.

Maplewood

After briefly attending St. Lawrence University (class of 1871) Ricalton left before taking a degree and moved to

Maplewood, New Jersey Maplewood is a township in Essex County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The township is an inner-ring suburban bedroom community of New York City in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's populatio ...

in 1871 for a 12-week, $200 contract as a school teacher. Contrary to practice at the time, his contract was renewed repeatedly until he became the district's first permanent school teacher and eventually principal. His legacy is celebrated in the

South Orange-Maplewood School District The South Orange-Maplewood School District is a regional public school district, serving students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade from the suburban communities of South Orange and Maplewood, two municipalities in Essex County, New Je ...

. Ricalton was locally famous for his habit of conducting classes outdoors in good weather and for his gentle manner. Among other things, a central square in Maplewood village is named after him, and there is a large mural of his outdoor classes in Maplewood municipal hall. He expanded his house on Valley Street in Maplewood to house his enormous collection. When the township of Maplewood declined to accept his collection as a gift, he moved it all in two and a half train cars to his birth town of Waddington, where he spent his last five years.

Traveler

Professor James Ricalton and two of his Kashmiri friends at the 1903 Delhi Durbar

By profession a school teacher, Ricalton's passion was

travel photography Travel photography is a genre of photography that may involve the documentation of an area's landscape, people, cultures, customs, and history. The Photographic Society of America defines a travel photo as an image that expresses the feeling of a t ...

. Every summer, while on vacation from his school, he embarked on journeys overseas using a wheelbarrow-like cart large enough to transport his photography equipment by day, and to sleep in by night. It was designed such that during rainy weather Ricalton could stand in a well in the middle and continue walking under the cart's cover. Using this system, he visited

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

, the

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

and the

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

region of

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, bringing back thousands of photographs, mineral specimens, and curios. His voyages came to the attention of local inventor

Thomas A. Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...

, who financed an expedition to search the Far East for a bamboo filament suitable for use in the

incandescent lamp An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb with a vacuum or inert gas to protect the filament from oxid ...

. Ricalton took a one-year leave of absence from teaching, and departed the United States in February 1888, arriving in

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

on April 1, via the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...

. Ricalton visited every part of the island, testing hundreds of samples, and continuing on to

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, becoming an expert in the properties of various types of bamboo. He returned home one year after his departure, with hundreds of samples for Edison, and recommendations on the two most suitable. This filament was used by Edison for nine months until the suitability of

tungsten Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with the symbol W and atomic number 74. Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively as compounds with other elements. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isolat ...

was discovered.

Photographer

Ricalton was a prolific photographer, leaving over 100,000 images, among them a large collection of

stereoscopic Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopics, or stereo imaging) is a technique for creating or enhancing the depth perception, illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word ''stereoscopy'' derives . Any stere ...

images.Dava, Valerie
"World Traveler, Explorer, Photographer; James Ricalton brought the world to his Maplewood students,"

Matters Magazine
'. He quit his teaching job in 1891 to become a professional photographer and war correspondent. For the next 15 years he photographed and recorded events such the

Spanish–American War , partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (clock ...

(1898–1899) in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

, during the

Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by ...

(1900) in

, and the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...

(1904–1905) in

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...

. When Ricalton tried to take pictures of Japanese soldiers in trenches during the Port Arthur campaign, he was held in custody until Major Yamaoka of General Nogi's staff confirmed that the American photographer could take pictures of whatever he wanted. Durbar Procession in 1903

He was amongst the photographers who recorded the 1903

Delhi Durbar The Delhi Durbar ( lit. "Court of Delhi") was an Indian imperial-style mass assembly organized by the British at Coronation Park, Delhi, India, to mark the succession of an Emperor or Empress of India. Also known as the Imperial Durbar, it was ...

which celebrated the installation of

Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria an ...

Emperor of India Emperor or Empress of India was a title used by British monarchs from 1 May 1876 (with the Royal Titles Act 1876) to 22 June 1948, that was used to signify their rule over British India, as its imperial head of state. Royal Proclamation of 22 ...

. Ricalton's photographs earned him numerous honors and many were used to illustrate textbooks. He sold his images to the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

and the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

in New York. Many of his photographs were used by the Underwood & Underwood to illustrate geography books. In 1909, at age 65, he walked from Cape Town to Cairo, a distance of 4,500 miles averaging 30 miles a day. An extant diary confirms his daily itinerary through

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

Rhodesia Rhodesia (, ), officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the ''de facto'' successor state to the British colony of S ...

, and

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

.Murphy, Kathryn Ricalton
"Travels in Africa,"
in ''The Life of James Ricalton.'' In 1912, Ricalton was sent on another assignment by Edison to test a motion picture camera in Africa, filming among other things a whaling expedition off

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

. His son Lomond accompanied him on this trip but died from

typhoid fever Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several ...

there, and this was Ricalton's last trip. Ricalton retired to his home town of Waddington, New York, where he died October 28, 1929, at the age of 85.

Selected works

* 1891 -
''The City of the Sacred Bo-tree.''
(

Anuradhapura Anuradhapura ( si, අනුරාධපුරය, translit=Anurādhapuraya; ta, அனுராதபுரம், translit=Aṉurātapuram) is a major city located in north central plain of Sri Lanka. It is the capital city of North Central ...

).'' New York. * 1900 -
''India through the Stereoscope: A Journey through Hindustan.''
New York: Underwood & Underwood
OCLC 2954773
* 1901 -
''China Through the Stereoscope: A Journey Through the Dragon Empire at the Time of the Boxer Uprising.''
New York: Underwood & Underwood. * 1902 -
''The Boxer Uprising, Cheefoo Taku, Tien-Tsin: A Part of Underwood & Underwood's Stereoscopic Tour through China.''
New York: Underwood & Underwood. * 1905 -
''A photographic record of the Russo-Japanese war,''
James H. Hare, editor. New York, P.F. Collier & Son. * 1907 -- ''India through the Stereoscope: A Journey through Hindustan.'' New York: Underwood & Underwood. * 1910 -- ''India through the Stereoscope: A Journey through Hindustan.'' New York: Underwood & Underwood
OCLC 21566682
* 1990 -
''James Ricalton's Photographic Travelogue of Imperial India,''
Christopher J. Lucas, editor. New York: Mellen.
OCLC 22345020
* 2008 -- 美国摄影师的中国照片日记] (''Meiguo she ying shi de Zhongguo zhao pian ri ji''), Guangyu Xu, editor. Fuzou: 福建教育出版社 (''Fujian jiao yu chu ban she''). ;

Notes

References

* Dyer, Frank Lewis and Thomas Commerford Martin. (1910
''Edison, His Life and Inventions.''
New York: Harper Brothers. * Ricalton, James. (1901)
''China Through the Stereoscope: A Journey Through the Dragon Empire at the Time of the Boxer Uprising.''
New York:

Underwood & Underwood Underwood & Underwood was an early producer and distributor of stereoscopic and other photographic images, and later was a pioneer in the field of news bureau photography. History The company was founded in 1881 in Ottawa, Kansas, by two brothers, ...

OCLC 5871769

External links

Ricalton.org
a web site maintained by Ricalton's great-grandson, James Ricalton Wilson.
Tribute page from Maplewood
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ricalton, James American photographers 1844 births 1929 deaths People from Maplewood, New Jersey War correspondents of the Russo-Japanese War American war correspondents Order of the Precious Crown members People from Waddington, New York Schoolteachers from New Jersey